Are you new to the business world and are looking to amplify your leads and grow your brand? If so, you may want to start with funnel marketing. Funnel marketing has been hailed as the key to generating consistent leads and eventual customers. But there’s more to it.

In this article, we shall discuss the marketing process in detail and take a closer look at the framework, who can use it, and its multiple benefits.

What is funnel marketing?
Funnel marketing is converting a lead into a loyal customer of the brand. The idea focuses on casting a huge marketing net to capture as many leads as possible. These leads are then nurtured into eventual customers through multiple steps. In an ideal situation, you would want to achieve a marketing cylinder. This means that you can convert each lead into a prospective customer. But, this is not always realistic. Instead, it is more common to see the numbers dwindle when leads are converted to customers, making the approach more "funnel-like."

Funnel marketing usually involves tons of different stages that allow you to convert your possible leads to prospective customers. Some stages include awareness, interest, consideration, intent, evaluation, and purchase. These stages have been elaborated on as follows:

Awareness
Awareness is the very first step in funnel marketing. The idea is to draw potential customers with the help of broad marketing campaigns, meaning the creation of brand awareness with the help of advertising, trade shows, blogs, media mentions, and a lot of other things. This stage is also used to generate leads that can be further nurtured down the funnel.

Interest
The second stage of funnel marketing is interest. Here, you need to focus on growing the interest of potential leads. You can do so by sharing information about the company and its products and services. This stage allows you to develop a relationship with the lead. It also helps build loyalty and trust.

Consideration
Once in the consideration stage, your leads can be considered as prospective customers. This stage of funnel marketing involves nurturing your lead. You can do so by sending the prospect more information about the company with the help of targeted content, such as timely emails, ads, blogs, and even free trials.

Intent
If your prospective customer has shown interest in buying any of the company’s products, it means that they have reached the intent stage. Intent can be noted if the lead has added the company's products to cart on E-commerce websites when product demos or company surveys are being called for and conducted.

Evaluation
During the evaluation stage, the sales and marketing teams of the company need to work together to ensure that the buyer makes the right decision concerning their purchase. This should be used to convince the buyer that your brand is best for them.

Purchase
Purchase is typically considered the last stage of funnel marketing. Here, your prospective customer has turned into a buyer. A positive experience with the purchase and eventual customer service is essential at this stage. It ensures that the customer will stay loyal to the brand and even recommend it to others.

What can you use marketing funnels for?
Marketing funnels can be used by both B2C (Business to Consumer) and B2B (Business to Business) setups. The process may vary in some ways. B2B marketing is more focused, as you have to find leads by sharing detailed information about specific products and services to specific sets of businesses. On the other hand, B2C leads are mainly acquired through large-scale and generic marketing with the help of ad campaigns, blog content, etc. B2Bs also differ when it comes to the relationship between the stakeholders. Most B2B consumers will interact consistently and vigorously with sales representatives or other individuals from the company to go from a lead to a buyer, which is not typical of a B2C lead. Most B2C leads could go through the entire marketing funnel without ever interacting with a stakeholder.

What are the benefits of marketing funnels?
Marketing is a complex concept. It can be very tedious to understand how your marketing is beneficial to your business or company without any structure. Marketing funnels are a way to simplify this complicated process and provide structure to your company. You can map out each stage of your prospective customers’ journey. You are also able to plan the steps that you can take to convert each lead to prospective customers and then buyers. Funnel marketing also helps measure how well you are performing in each stage. You can measure how well each stage works based on how many leads you can retain from the previous stage to the next one.